


My own true love was the flower of them all (he's young, but he's daily growing)

by lotesse



Category: Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-01
Updated: 2008-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-02 17:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotesse/pseuds/lotesse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She could catch water for a moment in her cupped hands, but it inevitably ran out in a matter of minutes. It felt like that, trying to speak to Taran, trying to hold on to him. He had been her boon companion, once, and now he slipped between her fingers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My own true love was the flower of them all (he's young, but he's daily growing)

Taran was different. Eilonwy was absolutely sure of it, somewhere down deep in her bones and at the edges of her fingertips. She might have given up her enchantments at Caer Colur, but she wasn't completely daft, for all of that. He was quiet, and at times she surprised a strange sadness in his eyes. It unsettled her; she didn't know how to speak to him, nor what to say.

Since he had returned to Caer Dallben, everything had happened so quickly. Gwydion, the letter sticks. The edge and spectre of war coming up on them like a great dark stormfront. They had ridden out on their journey before she'd even had a chance to look at Taran properly, to really recall what his face looked like in living color, what his mouth looked like as he spoke, the way his eyes changed with his moods. She'd felt a shock when she'd first seen him, an instant when the memory of him she'd carried with her bumped up against the solid reality of him - an instant when she'd realized the differences between her image and his body.

She was still only half-sure that she knew him at all, because he'd changed so much, and she'd forgotten so much, and everything was moving far too swiftly. She felt out of breath. And now that things were quiet again, their little camp glowing in the twilight against the dark eaves of one of the great wild forests of Prydain, she had nothing to say to him.

It was late. Gwydion was asleep, still healing, still in need of rest to repair his strength. Fflewddur had been sitting up against Llyan's tawny flank, but his head had slowly dropped sideways as he nodded off. Gurgi was curled up in his bedroll, scarcely visible save for a few leaves and tangles of hair. Only she and Taran were left awake. He sat by the fire, gazing into the embers, and she looked at him and felt as if she couldn't speak.

Somehow Taran's newly solemn bearing made her ashamed to prattle as she usually did, and she found herself being nearly as silent as he was. She couldn't be entirely silent, of course. Some things were beyond the possible, or the probable at any rate, and Eilonwy had no intention of becoming a gravestone, even if Taran seemed to think that it would be a fetching look for him. "I, at least, am glad to be alive," she said, sitting down next to him with a flounce of her skirts, which were more ornate than she would perhaps have wished them, but worn and travel-stained already.

He looked at her, dark brows raised. "What again?"

"I am glad to be alive. And I mean to take advantage of being so."

He dropped his eyes to his boots, and his voice when he spoke was low, quiet. It was enough to make a body scream, she thought. "I don't know why you speak so, Princess," he said. "I have no wish to stop you from living."

"I…you…" He was right, he wasn't doing anything to stop her. And yet…and yet…she found that his distance dulled her own effervescence almost unbearably. It made her unhappy, and she knew that he wouldn't want it to, but it did anyway. "Taran of Caer Dallben, I'm not speaking to you," she whispered, sounding weak even to her own ears - an echo of something that had passed away long ago.

He looked at her, eyes glowing like live coals in the dusk. "Eilonwy. Will you not tell me what troubles you?" She had never noticed how much her name could sound like a sigh when it was on his lips.  


Now it was her turn to blush and lower her eyes, suddenly and unaccountably shy. "Nothing's troubling me. Whyever would you ask?" But now she knew, though she had not known a moment ago, what the matter was. It was his very difference. It was that he was a stranger to her, as he never had been before. She'd really always thought that bards were being metaphorical when they talked about heartache, but it seemed that they were quite correct in their descriptions of the feeling.

Taran said nothing, and she awkwardly turned her finger to work at the slow unraveling of her kirtle's dirty hem. At last she said, still not looking at his face, "You never did tell me why it was that you left Caer Dallben. I…I missed you, when I arrived home from Mona. I had thought that you would be there, and that things could finally go back to the way they were before."

"Princess," Taran murmured, "I do not think that things ever could have been the same, no matter if I was there or not."

"Well no," Eilonwy answered tartly, "because of course you can't repeat days over again, that would be silly. But next days can be hopeful things, you know." She flushed a bit as she spoke; in truth, she wouldn't choose that things be exactly as they used to be, either. But she said nothing of that to him.

She had the distinct sensation of reaching into a swift brook: she could catch water for a moment in her cupped hands, but it inevitably ran out in a matter of minutes. It felt like that, trying to speak to Taran, trying to hold on to him. He had been her boon companion, once, and now he slipped between her grasping fingers. It must have been whatever had happened to him while she was away learning nothing useful, she thought, because he hadn't been like this before. If only she knew where he had been!

Raising her head, she examined him more closely than she had yet had time for, in the haste and activity of growing war. He had grown, of course, which was to be expected. Yet he seemed somehow very slight, as if there weren't quite enough of him to cover the enlarged frame of his bones. His roughly-cut hair tumbled down over his neck in the same way that it had always done, but the set of his shoulders was different; he was tense as a band of curved steel as he sat by their small campfire in the middle of the forest, and the way that he held his body was entirely unlike the loose sprawl of a boy's rest. He had changed so very much, she thought, coming at last to a contemplation of his solemn dark eyes and his hard, drawn mouth, and she had no idea what had happened to transfigure him so.

"Tell me," she said at last, "tell me where you were, when I was on Mona."

He answered quietly, "I have told you of my time in the Free Commots."

"Yes, but do you mean to tell me that you left Caer Dallben to learn sword-smithing? Coll could have taught you that, and you would never have needed to leave home. Taran -"

He met her eyes squarely, for the first time since she'd sat down beside him, and her breath caught in her throat. His eyes were dark, of course, and the night was gathering deeper, and so they rather melted into the velvety gloom. But she thought that Taran's eyes flashed at her words, flooded with emotion that she couldn't quite pin down or name. He sighed. "I -"

She let her question cut right through his heavy voice, through whatever dodge he was going to make. "Dallben said something about your parents? Is that what…"

Taran's tone, when he answered her, was still low and soft, but his words carried a peculiar intensity. "Yes. I wanted to know who they were, where I came from."

"And did you?"

He sighed again, and the impression she'd had of a certain frailty in him redoubled; he looked old, and worn down, and weary. Abruptly, she wondered if he'd been ill, somewhere far away from her.

"I found what I needed," he said.

"Taran of Caer Dallben, that's not what I asked you, and you know it!"

He smiled a bit at that, and it eased the knot of her heartache. But there was still something dark and sad in the twist of his mouth. Slowly, he said, "I think maybe it is." Raising his hands to ward off her protestations, he went on, "That is, that when I set out, I thought that discovering my parentage would show me who I was. And while I did not find my parents, I think that I did perhaps find out something of who I am."

Then he burst out, suddenly impassioned, almost angry - as if he couldn't keep it in any longer. "Eilonwy, I found nothing good! You keep asking me, and I have nothing to tell you! I discovered that I was vain, and silly, and ill tempered, and I found that I was the sort of man who would think of letting those inconvenient to me die rather than saving them. That is why," he said, stuttering, "Why I went to the Free Commots. I wanted - I couldn't return to you with empty hands."

Suddenly both wise and wary, Eilonwy sat back on her heels, letting her fine skirts ruck up around her knees. "Taran," she said, "do you know that I still don't feel even the slightest bit like a lady?"

He remained set like a coiled spring, explosive and anxious, and between clenched teeth he ground out, "Eilonwy, what does this -"

"I mean," she hurried on, not letting him nitter and stutter away when he didn't understand, "that I don't…I don't think we become ourselves all in a moment, like eggs cooking hard in a skillet. We're not runny one minute and dense the next. We're more like, oh, I suppose like apples ripening, or maybe pears would be better…anything, something that takes a while. Because even after living with Queen Teleria for all that time, I'm no sort of a lady at all. And you…you saved me from Achren, back at Caer Colur, and you were only yourself then."

She found, to her surprise, that she was suddenly very nearly whispering. She felt absolutely, mysteriously shy. She wanted to avert her gaze and blush and never say anything to him ever again, but she had the sense that it was too important that he really and truly understand her words for her to be able to not watch him while she said them. Shadows played over her face, but she never looked away. "And I think that if an Assistant Pig-Keeper can do just as well as Prince Gwydion, and can destroy Achren's power like that when she was once Queen of all Prydain, well then I don't see that it makes much difference who his parents were, after all. Because I would think that those actions would have shown him that even Assistant Pig-Keepers can do worthy deeds."

Taran's breath broke in a half-sob, and she felt the warm press of his hand brush against hers. Guilelessly, openly, he took her hand, and she let him. His strong, callused fingers - they were so different from courtiers' hands, she thought distractedly, they were capable hands, she believed in the promises they held - caressed her open palm. The moment was violent in its utter stillness; she could feel the syncopation of his pulse beating against her heart. His face was still almost entirely shadowed, and solemn and deep as the sea. She thought wildly that she was going to drown in him, that he was suddenly unfathomable where she'd thought her footing was most sure.

He clasped her to him, and she breathed in his familiar-unknown scent deeply: sweat and earth and something darker. His body was solid and strong against her, and she let him hold her up, allowing herself to become fluid and soft in his embrace. "Eilonwy," he murmured into her hair, "You do know that I missed you? You always - I'm not very good at - that is, I only ever seem to get myself into muddles when you're not by my side. You always know how to cut the knots, where I get tangled."

"Well," she huffed gently, "all of those interminable lessons in spinning and embroidery must have to come to some good. Although," she said, fingering the cloak cast over his shoulder, "I think you learned just as much as I did about threads and knots."

He laughed; it was all gold and brass and ringing out and horn-calls.

"Taran," she said to him, "don't worry at it anymore. I - that is, we have such a long way to go and - you look awfully tired." She reached up a finger to trace the dark places beneath his eyes, and he caught her hand in his, pressing it close for a moment.

"Go to sleep," she told him. "I can take the first watch, I'm not at all sleepy."

She sat awake long after his breathing had evened out in slumber, looking up at the stars and thinking secret thoughts.


End file.
